Paper 4: Philosophy and Scientific Practice
Also Paper HPS4 in PBT2 Psychological and Behavioural Sciences Tripos Part II
You should answer four questions in total. Answer one question from Section A and
three questions from Section B. All questions carry equal weighting.
You should spend no more than three hours on answering all the questions, and a
word limit is set of no more than 1,500 words per answer.
All your answers for this paper should be submitted in one DOC, DOCX or PDF
document. Each answer should be clearly headed with the question number and the
question.
Put your Blind Grade Number (BGN) at the start of the document. Do not put your
name anywhere in the document.
SECTION A
1. Can philosophy of science contribute to scientific practice? If so, how?
2. What would you change about medical research to make it better?
3. All sciences make compromises between different values. Discuss.
SECTION B
4. What is the biggest problem for the selected effects account of biological
function? Can it be overcome?
5. Is there a compelling argument for the anti-psychiatry position?
6. How should the medical research agenda be set?
7. What, if anything, can be done to overcome anthropomorphic bias in cognitive
science?
8. What, if anything, makes rational choice modelling essential to economics?
9. What conception of welfare should economics adopt?
10. Physics does not need to answer metaphysical questions. Discuss.
11. What constraints, if any, does the special theory of relativity place on our
understanding of time?
12. What is the strongest criticism of the idea of neurodiversity, and is it
convincing?